


Your pulse in the pages

by Beleriandings



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Abhorsen family feels, Family, Gen, Lirael will never not gravitate towards libraries, Post-Canon, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<i>Records of the Lives, Notable Deeds and Manners of Death of the Abhorsens</i>” read Sabriel, lifting the book and looking at the spine. She leafed through the pages, running her fingers over the faded ink of centuries, to where it had fallen open slightly; the page Lirael had been reading last. The last page that had been written upon. Those after it were blank, awaiting the hands of future generations to fill in the columns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your pulse in the pages

“Lirael? You’re still here? It’s almost time for - ” Sabriel caught sight of the book open on the table. “Oh.”

Lirael started, suddenly aware that she had been staring silently into space, her hand poised above the same page, for long enough at least for it the light to fade into a bloody sunset outside the wide window. 

She looked up, meeting her sister’s gaze at the trapdoor. The Charter lights in the walls and ceiling of the wood-panelled library at Abhorsen’s house brightened a little at her presence. 

Lirael blinked down at the book she had been reading before her mind started to wonder. “I’m sorry” she said slowly. “I… I lost track of the time.”

“There’s no need to apologise.” Sabriel came and sat down in the chair beside her at the table. She looked over Lirael’s shoulder at the pale blue linen-bound book she was reading. “May I see?”

Lirael nodded, pushing the book sideways to Sabriel. Lirael had wandered into the library out of simple curiosity; she supposed she could no longer in good faith call it professional interest. This was not a particularly magical book, save for the usual spells to keep the binding secure and the moths away, marks that were as so familiar to Lirael she barely noticed them anymore, the feeling of their light brush against her fingers like returning home, almost. 

There was no strong magical power in this book though; it even read normally from start to finish. But the neatly inked records - written in many different hands - had drawn her mind to unexpected places when she had opened the bronze clasp several hours before. 

“ _Records of the Lives, Notable Deeds and Manners of Death of the Abhorsens_ ” read Sabriel, lifting the book and looking at the spine. She leafed through the pages, running her fingers over the faded ink of centuries, to where it had fallen open slightly; the page Lirael had been reading last. The last page that had been written upon. Those after it were blank, awaiting the hands of future generations to fill in the columns. 

The last hand was Sabriel’s; the tradition, Lirael gathered, was for the new Abhorsen to fill in their predecessor’s page on their death. 

Briefly, Sabriel ran a hand over the blank page which would be her own - to be filled in by Lirael - before flipping back to the one before, covered in Sabriel’s own handwriting. 

 _Terciel, the 52nd Abhorsen_ , it read at the top of the page, along with his date of birth and death. 

“I wish you could have known him” sighed Sabriel, into the silence. 

Lirael felt herself frown, letting her hair hide her face a little and wondering what on earth she should say to this. 

Sabriel smiled wanly. “I know you must feel… conflicted about father. Even resentful. I understand that… you don’t need to hide.”

Lirael started in sudden surprise, feeling a blush rising on her pale cheeks. Even after knowing each other for such a short time, she could never quite hide her feelings from her sister, not like she had been able to with her countless cousins.

“It’s not that” said Lirael, with a sigh. “I just…” she hesitated; speaking her thoughts in words had never come easily to her. “I barely knew my mother, and I never knew my father at all. I never even…” she tailed off, gesturing weakly around her with her golden right hand, as though the gesture could take in the reading room and the library, the two of them sitting in it, all of Abhorsen’s House, her entire new life. “This. It’s still….”

“New?” said Sabriel.

Lirael nodded gratefully. “Unfamiliar, I suppose” she murmured. 

Sabriel turned her chair so that their eyes met once more, taking both of Lirael’s hands in her own. “I can’t help you to feel at ease with your mother. Nor father, really - ”

“Oh no, it’s really nothing…”

Sabriel stilled her with a look, as Lirael trailed off, realising Sabriel had seen right through her again. “I can understand why you feel conflicted. Honestly I do. I can’t help much with that. But I can tell you about him. If…” Sabriel swallowed, pausing. “If you think that would help.”

Lirael’s eyes widened. “Yes. Yes I think it would.”

Sabriel nodded, staring off into the fire. “Mostly, I remember him as   _kind_.” She gazed into the dancing flames. “He loved me dearly, as I loved him. I suppose  I was all he had too, after my mother died, and the times were dark and dangerous then. It must have hurt him badly to send me to Ancelstierre, but still he did it. It was the right choice, after all.” She stared into the fire for a while more, silence falling between them. “He used to come and visit me, at school. Sometimes it would be a sending of him, and sometimes he would cross the Wall in body. Those times, he would take me out for a picnic in the grounds, or to the shops in Wyverley, and it would be a day I would look forward to for months and months. Once we rode the big wheel together, when the fair came to Bain.” 

Sabriel sighed, knotting her fingers together. “He would always leave me homework, reading. Not the  _Book of the Dead_ … that came later, and he always took it away with him. But new spells to learn, things I’d never be taught in school. I would do it at night, when the other girls had gone to bed. It made me feel…” she thought for a moment. “I wanted to help him in his work. I wanted that so badly. I wanted his work to be  _done_ , the danger to be  _fixed_ , so that we could live together again.” She gave a small bitter smile. “I was young, then, and I didn’t know that the work of the Abhorsen is never done.” Sabriel frowned. “And there were things… there were many things he did not tell me,  _chose_  not to tell me. About himself, about the Charter, huge gaps in my knowledge of the Kingdom. And… and I never understood  _why_. There was so much that…” she swallowed. “So much that I wish I could have asked him about, at the end.”

Lirael narrowed her eyes, something in Sabriel’s voice and the set of her muscles sparking recognition within her. “You don’t know how to feel about him either.”

Sabriel smiled faintly. “I suppose the years have allowed me time to dwell on my memories, and how they match up with what I have learned of him since. Perhaps a little too much.”

Lirael did not know what to say to this, so she said nothing, and they lapsed into companionable silence for a while. She liked that about Sabriel; her sister seemed to understand Lirael’s silences perfectly, and when she needed them. 

“Thank you” said Lirael at last. “For… for telling me.”

Sabriel smiled. “I can tell you more, if you like. You do have a right to know.” They both stared at the blank page before them, after Terciel’s page, where Sabriel’s life and notable deeds - and death - would one day be inscribed. “You lost your chance to know him. Everyone and everything has a time to die… that is what each generation of this family of ours must impress upon the next, for the good of the Kingdom. And yet often I think this world is too cruel, allows us too little time to  _live_.”

Lirael’s throat closed up looking at the blank page, the page that she would one day fill. “Please don’t die” she burst out, her words stumbling over each other, even as her face reddened. “When I thought you were dead before, I didn’t even know you yet, and still…” she faltered. “I need you, Sabriel.”

Sabriel looked at her with sadness in her dark eyes. “I  _will_  die, one day. There is no way around that, and, chances are, I will not live what any other family would regard as a long life. We Abhorsens almost never do, given our lives and duties, and you must be prepared for that, Lirael.” She softened a little. “But you must also know I will do everything in my power to remain here with you, with my - our - family, for as long as may be.” She smiled, closing the book on the table before them. “That’s a promise.”

Lirael nodded, desperately thankful despite the scantness of Sabriel’s reassurance. “Thank you” she murmured, and, on impulse, hugged her sister, swiftly and a little clumsily.

Sabriel held her back, resting her cheek against the top of Lirael’s dark head, hair so like her own when she was young. That was, before her own hair had become streaked with silver, just as she remembered her father’s had been. Lirael’s skin had paled, since they had started her training proper; Death had leeched the very colour from her, as it was always wont to. 

 _And yet_ , thought Sabriel,  _though we Abhorsens may give our lives to keep the Kingdom safe, there is still some warmth in us yet_. 


End file.
